Faculty notes 2019

Read on for notes on accomplishments and accolades for College of Music faculty in 2019.

James Austin
Professor of Music Education

Austin completed his 13th and final year as associate dean for enrollment management and undergraduate studies (in addition to one year as interim dean) on June 30, returning to the music education faculty full time this fall. In Spring 2019, Austin presented research papers at the International Symposium on Assessment in Music Education at the University of Florida and the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in Toronto. Austin is also completing his third year as editor of the Journal of Music Teacher Education.

Margaret Berg
Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Professor of Music Education

After being promoted to professor in August 2018, Berg co-authored a book, ASTA String Assessment Guide: Companion to the ASTA String Curriculum. Her article with Associate Professor of Music Education David Rickels on the college’s music mentor plus program was published in the Journal of Music Teacher Education. Berg was a featured clinician at the Oklahoma Music Educators Association’s Beginning Teacher Mentoring Conference and gave presentations at the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) Music Research Conference and the Center for the Study of Education and the Musical Experience meeting. This summer, Berg was appointed associate dean for graduate studies.

James Brody
Director of the Musicians’ Wellness Program

Brody was an invited presenter at two major events: the Freedom to Make Music conference in New York and the Musicians’ Health and Performance conference in Helsinki, where he met with members of the Finnish musicians’ wellness community and enhanced the College of Music’s blossoming relationship with the Sibelius Academy. 

Steven Bruns
Associate Professor of Music Theory

Bruns lectured on the music of George Crumb at the University of Bonn, Germany. He also moderated a panel on George Rochberg with University of Michigan Professor of Violin Andrew Jennings, Christina Jennings and Margaret McDonald. Bruns and Professor Emerita Elissa Guralnick were on a panel exploring Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd in connection with Central City Opera. He also presented with Keith Waters and Philip Chang during CU on the Weekend as part of the CU Bernstein at 100 celebration. In June, Bruns concluded 13 years of service as associate dean for graduate studies. 

Peter Cooper
Senior Instructor of Oboe

Peter Cooper performed Moonlight, a new oboe concerto by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts, with the Colorado Symphony, conducted by Music Director Brett Mitchell and co-commissioned by the Colorado and Baltimore symphonies. He gave master classes at the Manhattan School of Music, Sam Houston State University, the Denver School of the Arts and the International Double Reed Society conference at the University of South Florida, where he also performed a solo concert. He taught at the Rocky Ridge Music Center for his seventh summer and in June, he gave lessons and a master class at the Conservatoire de Paris.

Andrew Cooperstock
Professor of Piano

Cooperstock served as artistic director of the CU Bernstein at 100 festival, which included two dozen concerts across campus. He was also appointed acting assistant director of the Saarburg International Music Festival in Germany and gave concerts and master classes in Hong Kong, the Czech Republic and the Pacific Northwest. Cooperstock served as state convention artist for the music teachers associations of California and New Jersey and was pianist for Off the Hook’s WinterFest series with composer Bruce Adolphe, resident lecturer for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Alejandro Cremaschi
Roser Piano and Keyboard Program Chair and Professor of Piano Pedagogy

Cremaschi presented his research on Latin American music at the Music Teachers National Association conference in Spokane (South American piano duets with Jessica Pacheco), the College Music Society Great Lakes Regional Conference (songs by Joseph Canteloube with Holly Janz), and the College Music Society International Conference in Belgium ["Chronicles of a Belgian Gaucho: Julio (Jules) Perceval, his eclectic piano music, and his influence in Argentina’s music education"]. He performed and taught a master class at the University of Arizona and is on the planning committee for the 2019 National Conference in Keyboard Pedagogy, the largest conference in the field.

Matthew Dockendorf
Associate Director of Bands and Instructor of Conducting and Music Education

Dockendorf was, for the second time, a section coach and guest conductor for the World Youth Wind Orchestra Project and World Adult Wind Orchestra Project in Schladming, Austria, in July 2018. He was a guest clinician for the Longmont Middle School Band Clinic and was a guest conductor for the Mountain Ridge Middle School performance at the Colorado Music Educators Association (CMEA) conference, under the direction of alumna Claire Glover (BME ’17). Dockendorf also guest conducted for the Cherry Creek Middle School Honor Band and was guest clinician at several middle school and high schools throughout the Denver area.

Andrew Garland
Assistant Professor of Voice

Garland performed with the Colorado Symphony, Camerata Pacifica, Colorado Bach Ensemble, Moab Music Festival, Opera Louisiane, the Grand Junction Symphony and Rhode Island Philharmonic orchestras, the Takács Quartet and pianist Warren Jones. He made his jazz debut with tenor saxophonist Stan Killian and sang at Fenway Park in Boston. Garland gave recitals and master classes at Brown University and the University of Texas at Austin and taught master classes at DePaul University, the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago and the Texas regional National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) competition. 

John Gunther
Thompson Jazz Studies Program Director and Associate Professor of Jazz Studies

Gunther was a featured soloist on a Naxos recording by the Kantorei Choir and recorded in New York on the Newvelle record label. He performed and lectured in Buenos Aires and traveled with CU Boulder student Matteo Bassani (BM Jazz) to the International Association of Schools of Jazz (IASJ) conference in Croatia. 

Yoshi Ishikawa
Professor of Bassoon

Ishikawa and Senior Instructor of Oboe Peter Cooper will host the 50th anniversary conference of the International Double Reed Society at the College of Music on July 27-31, 2021. The IDRS conference is one of the most important events for oboists and bassoonists worldwide. The hosts anticipate an attendance of more than a thousand delegates. This year, Ishikawa presented a debut recital in Granada, Spain, with his daughter Marisa Ishikawa (BM ’15, DMA Violin) on violin and wife Brenda Ishikawa on piano. Professor Ishikawa also presented master classes in China, South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand. 

Christina Jennings
Associate Professor of Flute

Jennings was featured in season two of the popular podcast Flutes Unscripted. She also recorded an album with pianist Blair McMillan, featuring the music of Laura Elise Schwendinger, and performed a recital with guitarist João Luiz at the Buffet Crampon Showroom in Manhattan.

David Korevaar
Professor of Piano

The release of Korevaar’s Luigi Perrachio album in late 2018 has garnered an impressive number of positive reviews and led to a review and interview in Gramophone magazine. Korevaar also performed the “Trout” Quintet with Professor of Double Bass Paul Erhard and the Takács Quartet on the Great Performances at Lincoln Center series at Alice Tully Hall this spring. 

Daphne Leong
Associate Professor of Music Theory

Leong’s book Performing Knowledge: Twentieth-Century Music in Analysis and Performance will be published this year by Oxford University Press. Her articles and chapters were published in Music Theory Online and in the Norton Guide to Teaching Music Theory. Leong gave a lecture-recital with violinist and alumna Michiko Theurer (DMA ’16) on George Crumb’s Nocturnes in Norway. Leong presented on “Motion in Wuorinen’s Grand Union” at the Eastman School of Music. She is currently heading an interdepartmental project, Linking Music Theory and Practice, and organizing a conference, Rhythm in Music since 1900, featuring a lecture-recital by the renowned pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard.

Yonatan Malin
Associate Professor of Music Theory

Malin continued to explore the relationship between music, words and meaning in diverse repertoires this year. He published an article on Jewish Biblical chant in Yuval Online, the journal of the Jewish Music Research Centre at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and he presented a paper on poetic endings and song endings in Franz Schubert’s Winterreise at the University of Rochester and University of Oregon. 

Margaret McDonald
Associate Professor of Collaborative Piano

McDonald and Associate Professor of Viola Erika Eckert performed duo concerts at Arizona State University, Florida State University and Lynn Conservatory of Music. McDonald performed with many distinguished artists, including violinists Glenn Dicterow and Jorja Fleezanis, as well as with London Symphony Orchestra members Andrew Marriner, clarinet, and Neil Percy, percussion. 

Paul McKee
Associate Professor of Jazz Studies

McKee performed at Dizzy's Club at Lincoln Center in New York with the Ben Markley Big Band. He also performed with the Markley Big Band and several other groups at the Jazz Education Network annual conference in Dallas. Finally, McKee was the director of the Michigan All-State High School Jazz Ensemble.

Donald McKinney
Director of Bands and Associate Professor of Conducting

McKinney was nominated for a 2019 Grammy Award in the Best Classical Compendium category. The nomination was for his work as producer of a Dallas Winds recording, John Williams at the Movies. He also conducted concerts and completed residencies in Winnipeg, Canada, and at Pacific Lutheran University and Austin Peay State University.

Tom Myer
Associate Professor of Saxophone

In October, Myer and the CU saxophone studio hosted Claude Delangle. Delangle is the professor of saxophone at the Conservatoire de Paris. He and his wife, pianist Odile Delangle, presented a recital titled "Homage to Debussy." Mr. Delangle also presented a master class, where he worked with saxophone students Mark Ivlev (BM), Miranda Stark (BM), Michael Meier (DMA) and Lucas Hopkins (DMA). He was able to enjoy the beautiful weather and even did some busking on the Pearl Street Mall.

Abigail Nims
Assistant Professor of Voice

Nims performed in the New York premiere of Missy Mazzoli's opera Proving Up and as soloist with the Phoenix Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, Shreveport Symphony and Huntsville Symphony orchestras. 

Jeffrey Nytch
Entrepreneurship Center for Music Director and Associate Professor of Composition

Nytch's Thank you letter to my lungs received its premiere as part of the Ars Nova Singers’ "Shared Visions" concert in April at Bethany Lutheran Church in Cherry Hills Village and St. John’s Episcopal Church in Boulder. His violin concerto Costa Concordia was premiered by Takács Quartet violinist Edward Dusinberre with the Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra in April; it received subsequent performances in San Jose and Pittsburgh. 

David Requiro
Assistant Professor of Cello

Requiro officially joined the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's Bowers Program with performances in Virginia, Massachusetts and New York’s Alice Tully Hall. He also had the pleasure of joining the Takács Quartet in performance at Lincoln Center's White Lights Festival. Requiro performed as a member of the Weiss-Requiro Duo—with Senior Instructor and Chamber Music Coordinator Meta Weiss—in the Bangalow Music Festival in Bangalow, Australia, as well as at the Vanke Meisha Arts Academy in Shenzhen, China.  

David Rickels
Associate Professor of Music Education

Rickels was elected the next chairperson of the Society for Music Teacher Education (SMTE), serving as chair-elect from 2018 through 2020, national chair from 2020 through 2022, and immediate past chair from 2022 through 2024. He will be a voice for music teacher educators on policies and other issues related to teacher preparation and will represent the society to NAfME. Rickels gave several presentations at Louisiana State University, the University of Oklahoma and Université Laval in Quebec, speaking on pedagogical methods, applications of technology in music teaching, research methods in music education and strategies for recruiting music teachers.

Matthew Roeder
Associate Dean for Enrollment Management and Undergraduate Studies and Associate Professor of Conducting and Music Education

Matthew Roeder became associate dean for enrollment management and undergraduate studies for the College of Music on July 1, after serving as associate director of bands and Golden Buffalo Marching Band director for 17 years. Additionally, Roeder served as clinician and adjudicator for the Colorado Bandmasters Association State Concert Band Festival, held over two days in April.

Laurie Sampsel
Professor of Musicology

The latest edition of Sampsel’s book, Music Research: A Handbook, was published by Oxford University Press. The textbook is designed for graduate music students taking required research methods, bibliography and writing classes.

John Seesholtz
Director of Vocal Pedagogy and Associate Professor of Voice

Seesholtz performed Jeffrey Nytch's song cycle Silences at his Faculty Tuesdays series debut in March. 

Elizabeth Swanson
Associate Director of Choral Studies and Assistant Professor of Conducting

Swanson served as the College of Music’s interim director of choral studies this year. In Spring 2019, she was invited to be a conductor-in-residence at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and was a guest conductor for the inaugural Montana State University Women’s Vocal Festival. 

Benjamin Teitelbaum
Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology

Teitelbaum’s book Lions of the North: Sounds of the New Nordic Radical Nationalism received an Honorable Mention for the International Political Sociology Book Award from the International Studies Association.

Keith Waters
Music Theory Chair and Professor of Music Theory

Waters’ new book, Postbop Jazz in the 1960s, was published by Oxford University Press in July. This follows his 2011 award-winning book, The Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-68, also published by Oxford. In Fall 2018 and Spring 2019, he guest lectured at the New England Conservatory of Music. 

Charles Wetherbee
Assistant Professor of Violin

Wetherbee’s string quartet Carpe Diem won a Global Music Award in November 2018 and had its premiere concert at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in January 2019.

Guest Artists

Guest artists Emily Ondracek-Peterson and Erik Christian Peterson were featured on the November Pendulum New Music Series concert.

The 2018-19 music education guest scholars included Karin Hendricks and Tawyna Smith, both assistant professors at Boston University, who presented on compassionate music teaching and mixed methods research; and Vicki Lind, professor at the University of Arkansas, who presented on culturally responsive music teaching.

Warren Jones, collaborative pianist and vocal coach at Manhattan School of Music, and Jean Barr (left), collaborative pianist at Eastman School of Music, were guests of the Collaborative Piano area.

New York-based ensemble loadbang—William Lang, trombone; Carlos Cordeiro, bass clarinet; Jeffrey Gavett, baritone voice; and Andy Kozar, trumpet—performed and worked closely with composition students during a week-long residency.

CU Bands hosted composer Jim Stephenson in April; the final CU Bands concert of the year featured Professor of Bassoon Yoshi Ishikawa and Associate Professor of Voice Matthew Chellis in a performance of Stephenson’s Dialogue of Self and Soul. The department also hosted composer D.J. Sparr in February and performed his piece Cloud of Witnesses. In 2018, Distinguished Professor and longtime Director of Bands Allan McMurray was the guest clinician for the annual Conducting Symposium; in 2019, H. Robert Reynolds was guest clinician.